NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 15: Disoriented
Still spinning and flailing through the air, Hiral threaded solar energy into his Rune of Gravity to try and take control of his flight—fall—whatever it was.
Tried.
Debuff: Disoriented has caused Rune of Gravity to backfire.
The notification flashed in front of Hiral’s eyes at the same time he suddenly felt like he weighed hundreds of extra pounds. The arcing flight arrested in the blink of an eye, and he dropped like a screaming rock straight down to hit…
Splash.
Cold water washed over him, and the whole up-versus-down problem became a hundred times worse. Light refracted through the depths from the glowing roots, but the water churned around him as his limbs thrashed. Liquid forced its way into his mouth. Down his throat. Into his lungs.
He hadn’t had a chance to take a deep breath, and his screams became nothing more than bubbles spewing, circling, fleeing, swirling around his head like a screen. He kicked his legs, but what direction should he go? He pulled with his arms, but there was nothing to hold on to. His rune had failed him—it had made things worse—and there was no party to pull him out!
Lungs burning, the added weight vanished and left Hiral floating amidst hundreds of tiny bubbles.
Where’s the surface? Where?
How was he going to…?
Hiral slammed his eyes shut and forced his body still—thrashing wasn’t helping him—then focused all his attention on the feeling of the air bubbles passing across his skin. Even though he wore the Second-Skin of Ur’Thul, the gentle flow was unmistakable. And, most importantly, heading in one direction.
Latching onto that sensation and fighting against the vertigo, Hiral dragged his arms down and kicked his legs, pushing himself in the same direction the bubbles went. Kick, kick, kicking, he swam through the water, one second turning to three, to five, so long that his lungs seized in his chest, and he imagined himself going in the wrong direction.
If… if he didn’t get a breath soon, he’d have no choice but to risk using a rune or ability, regardless of the consequences. Like fiery claws squeezed him from the inside, Hiral reached his limit a long second later and…
His head breached the waterline.
Gaaaasp!
Hacking coughs ejected spittle and water from his lungs in thick streamers that hung from his lips, and he kicked his feet, arms wading on both sides, as he fought to stay on the surface. Finally, mercifully, he got his first breath, and the darkness peeled back from the corners of his eyes, revealing a small plot of land in the water, and a tunnel beyond.
The usual glowing roots ran along the slick walls on all sides, but there wasn’t any sign of his friends. Did the forks lead to other areas? Where was the Mid-Boss? His eyes went to the tunnel on the outcropping. It had to be in there, and if his friends weren’t here with him, that meant they might already be fighting it.
Despite the lingering effects of Disoriented, Hiral swam to shore and pulled himself out onto land, the water flowing off his Second-Skin of Ur’Thul to leave him almost perfectly dry. That’s convenient.
Vertigo assailed him as soon as he stood up, and a half-jog, half-stumble got him to the tunnel. Unlike the slide, the walls here were more of the natural rock, not smoothed out by acid. Why not? What was the difference?
Questions for later. He pushed deeper into the tunnel, one hand on the wall to maintain his balance. Thirty seconds later, around a sharp bend, he found the next room, and a pair of creatures waiting for him inside.
Maybe waiting wasn’t the most accurate word for it, but they certainly looked up at the same time they came into sight. Standing on two thick legs, these ants were covered in the same dark carapace as the others, though theirs had a slightly more marbled pattern. The heads were small for their seven-foot height, the proportions of the whole creature far closer to human than ant, with four arms growing out of wide shoulders and the chest below. Even more unusual, the ants seemed to be wearing clothing, and had weapons at their sides.
Are those RHCs? No, the weapons weren’t quite the same, but they were certainly similar. A second’s attention brought up the same name above both monsters through Hiral’s View ability.
(Mid-Boss) Army Ant – Unknown Rank
No sooner had he confirmed they were both Mid-Bosses than another prompt window quickly came up.
Dynamic Quest
You’ve stumbled across more manufactured abominations—trapped by their own—deep underground.
Destroy the abominations and escape their prison.
Abominations slain: 0/?
Manufactured abominations? Just like the Lady of the Web. Were these things made by the…?
Hiral didn’t have a chance to finish his thought. The pair of Mid-Bosses in front of him drew RHC-like weapons in each of their four hands and pulled the triggers.
Fighting against the lingering effects of Disoriented—Still thirty seconds left—Hiral dove to the side as eight blasts cut through the air right where he’d been standing. Stone chips flew at the points of impact, pelting him from behind, and his usually graceful roll turned into something far too much like a bellyflop. He skidded along the ground several inches, then got his hands under himself and pushed up, kicking off like a sprinter.
More bolts packed into the ground behind him, and the whole world tilted to the right as vertigo gripped his mind. Shoulder slapping into the wall and grinding along the stone, Hiral kept his legs moving, though it was far more a stumble than a run, and he circled around the wide room. Blasts chasing him every step of the way, he was just fast enough to stay ahead of the monsters’ aim, and he glanced towards the center of the space to get a better idea of what he was dealing with.
Roughly a hundred feet around, it wasn’t a big room, and looked to be set up as some kind of old laboratory. There was one exit on the far side of the room, while tables sat littered with crystals and old equipment, tools, and the remnants of what had to have been notes at one point. Hanging from their chained wrists on the far wall were three wildly disfigured Army Ant corpses. Arms too short, legs split like rotten wood, heads with their eyes and mandibles in the wrong places… These things were horror stories left on display.
Failed attempts? Something worse?
Another stumbling step, and Hiral’s distraction—combined with the Disoriented debuff—made him fail to notice the table right in front of him. Catching sight of it out of the corner of his eye at the last second, he hit it awkwardly with his hip, but threw his weight over it while kicking his legs up. As one hand caught the edge of the table, his body weight tipped the balance, pulling the table up to come crashing down on its side beside him.
Pack, pack, pack, pack. Bolts hit the upended table, denting the metal and sending the table skidding on the floor towards Hiral. Bracing it with one foot while he struggled for his bearings, it was clear the table wouldn’t stand up to the onslaught long, and he pulled his own RHCs off his thighs.
I hope these don’t count as an ability, he thought as he rolled onto his stomach and popped up to his knees. Pulling both triggers without really looking—and still afflicted by the debuff—his shots didn’t even come close to hitting the one Army Ant standing back and keeping him pinned.
One!?
Movement on his left, and Hiral leapt to the right a heartbeat before the second Army Ant crashed into the table and sent it skidding along the floor. Gone were the four cannons in its hands, instead replaced by what looked like small hand-scythes made from the mandibles of its fellow ants. Swish, swish, swish, swish. The blades came in swinging, the first cut missing Hiral’s neck by bare inches, while the second sailed over his head as he ducked, and the final two didn’t even come close.
He couldn’t risk putting solar energy into his Lost Echo Aura and having it backfire on him, but even with the debuff, he was able to stay ahead the monster’s persistent attacks.
Pretty fast, but the swings are wild.
With a few seconds still left on Disoriented, Hiral rolled off to the side, staying low as more shots from the second Army Ant cut through the air. The Second-Skin of Ur’thul would repair almost any damage it—or he—took, as long as it wasn’t totally destroyed, but he still didn’t want to start taking hits. As soon as he got back up to one knee, he twisted and aimed his RHC, some kind of instinct pulling the barrel of the weapon right an extra inch, and pulled the trigger.
Without the Chord to guide his movements or the monster’s, Hiral could only gape as the thing seemed to duck into the blast, taking the bolt of Impact square in the forehead. Despite the thick, marbled carapace, the force of the shot hit the off-balance Mid-Boss like a sledgehammer and sent it staggering back to topple onto one of the research tables.
That had to have been a critical hit, and because of the pressure of the debuff, he’d felt his body correcting to make the most of the shot. That had to be how the PIM assisted with critical hits—minor alterations to aim and speed when lining up an attack. Under normal circumstances, he’d never have noticed the influence, but because of the debuff…
Pack! A bolt slapped into his left shoulder, snapping him out of his thoughts and staggering him to the side, but he swung the weapon up in his right hand and pulled his own trigger. He missed, but as the last second of Disoriented faded, the whole world seemed to tighten around him. His limbs, previously ungainly like they were three sizes too big, were his again, and his Dex took control of the situation, kicking him up and flipping over a second shot. At the same moment, a soft melody floated through the room, and he fell into the Chord of the Primal Echo.
No sooner had his feet touched down than he jumped again and changed the orientation of his gravity. Right became down, and Hiral landed on the wall to sprint along the curved surface while taking aim with his weapons above his head. Two pulls of his triggers hit the ranged Army Ant in the chest, tossing it backwards, but Hiral kept running.
Less than a second later, his weapons off cooldown, he fired again, hitting the melee Mid-Boss as it righted itself from where it lay across the table. Already dazed from the first hit to the head, these next two blasts tore off chunks from its health bar and sent it sprawling to the ground.
Time to change it up. Hiral leapt off the wall while changing the orientation of his gravity again. His stomach flipped at the sudden shift, but he barely noticed it, instead sheathing his RHCs while he twisted in the air. Out came Death Knell and Stormstrike from the Ring of Amin Thett.
Feet touching down, Hiral sprinted towards the Mid-Bosses at the same time he whipped his swords around. The melee Army Ant managed to get its four weapons up in time to parry Stormstrike, and it would’ve even worked… had the sword not been flying through the air. A twist of Hiral’s wrist kicked the weapon higher, flipping it upside-down, and it slid past the ant’s defenses, scoring a deep gouge along its shoulder.
Then, just as the danger seemed past, Hiral hauled back with that same hand while sweeping his other out and around. Stormstrike’s lightning-shaped blade burst out of the Army Ant’s chest, punching right through the monster from behind at the same time Death Knell cut low under the tables. Cleaving metal table legs like stalks of grass, the sword didn’t have any extra trouble against the ant’s limbs.
Taking it at the knees, the monster fell to the ground with a keening scream. Hiral jerked that hand once more and drove Death Knell into the low ceiling. A thread of solar energy activated its Cutting Field ability, and the blue column of light appeared around the prone monster.
With that Mid-Boss contained for the moment, Hiral jerked Stormstrike towards him with an added pulse of his Rune of Attraction, then let go of his mental hold on the sword. Runes of Impact formed in front of his fists as the other, grievously wounded Army Ant staggered towards him.
One, two, three, four. He started with the abdomen, lifting the ant from its feet, then continued on to chest, chest, face, each blow ringing in time with Chord. With the fourth strike, the monster seemed to hang in the air above him, and the notification for Piercing Shot flashed in the corner of his vision.
With his left hand, Hiral drew an RHC, the runed circles appearing in front of the barrel, while he snapped around in a violent roundhouse kick. The powerful blow caught the ant as it started to fall and sent it rocketing off to strike the wall hard enough for the stone to crack. Then, as soon as he brought his foot down, Hiral followed the leading Chord and pulled the trigger. Powered by Piercing Shot, the bolt punched straight through a table—and the Army Ant beyond.
Dynamic Quest: Update
Abominations slain: 2/?
And then, a second later…
Dynamic Quest: Update
Abominations slain: 3/?
Dynamic Quest: Update
Abominations slain: 4/?
Dynamic Quest: Update
Abominations slain: 5/?
Looks like it’s not just me.
With the notification windows ceased for the moment, Hiral went over to double-check each of his Mid-Bosses to make sure they were, in fact, dead. He didn’t need a close examination to confirm it. Having finished that, he headed towards the only other exit in the room.